Banjo Fills With F Gypsy Minor

F Gypsy Minor runs 7 notes to the octave. Below it is laid onto this chair's GDGBD fretboard with every F marked, because what a fill needs mid-song is not the pattern — it is where the root is when the chord changes under it.

Harmonic minor with a raised 4th — two wide, yearning steps (b3 to #4, b6 to 7) give it a smoldering, theatrical intensity. Dark, exotic, and full of drama.

Heard in: Hungarian and Romani folk, Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies, gypsy jazz, klezmer, and neoclassical metal.

A banjo fill is usually still a roll, with the melody notes pushed to the top of it — the scale says which notes the fretting hand can put there, while the open strings and the high drone on the short fifth string keep ringing underneath.

Play it slowly against the audio until the shape stops being a shape, then take it to a song in F and let the melody pick its own notes out of it.